South Oropouche-based SM Jaleel & Com­pa­ny (SMJ) said yes­ter­day dis­cus­sions are cur­rent­ly un­der­way re­gard­ing the for­mal con­trac­tu­al arrange­ments for the sup­ply of Oa­sis Wa­ter to Caribbean Air­lines Ltd (CAL) for a one-year pe­ri­od.

The news re­lease from the bev­er­age man­u­fac­tur­er was in re­sponse to a news sto­ry in the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, in which it was re­port­ed that the ma­jor­i­ty state-owned air­line award­ed a con­tract for the sup­ply of bot­tled wa­ter to SM Jaleel worth $405,600 on Ju­ly 8.

The in­for­ma­tion for the T&T Guardian sto­ry was sourced from the CAL pro­cure­ment por­tal. Un­der na­ture of ser­vice, CAL out­lined, “The pro­vi­sion of wa­ter” and un­der the name of sup­pli­er/con­trac­tor award­ed was SM Jaleel & Co Ltd. (See screen­shot be­low)

The air­line’s web­site al­so clar­i­fied that the cur­ren­cy of the award­ed con­tract was Trinidad and To­ba­go dol­lars, the val­ue of the award­ed con­tract was $405,600 and the date of the award­ed con­tract was Ju­ly 8, 2026.

In its news re­lease, SM Jaleel said it “is pleased to con­firm the con­tin­u­a­tion of its long­stand­ing com­mer­cial re­la­tion­ship with Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed, a part­ner­ship that spans more than 20 years.

“Fol­low­ing Caribbean Air­lines’ re­cent In­vi­ta­tion to Bid for the sup­ply of bot­tled wa­ter, SM Jaleel sub­mit­ted its quo­ta­tion on 2 Ju­ly 2026.

“The pro­cure­ment process is con­tin­u­ing in ac­cor­dance with the ap­plic­a­ble reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments, in­clud­ing re­view by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tions.

“Oa­sis Wa­ter is proud­ly man­u­fac­tured by SM Jaleel, one of the most in­ter­na­tion­al­ly cer­ti­fied bev­er­age man­u­fac­tur­ers in the Caribbean. The com­pa­ny main­tains glob­al­ly recog­nised cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and cre­den­tials, in­clud­ing those as­so­ci­at­ed with the In­ter­na­tion­al Bot­tled Wa­ter As­so­ci­a­tion (IB­WA), NSF In­ter­na­tion­al, the Safe Qual­i­ty Food (SQF) Pro­gramme, and reg­is­tra­tion with the Unit­ed States Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FDA).”

The com­pa­ny al­so said it looks for­ward to the suc­cess­ful con­clu­sion of the pro­cure­ment process and to con­tin­u­ing its val­ued part­ner­ship with Caribbean Air­lines.

On Ju­ly 5, the Sun­day Guardian re­port­ed that the CAL board had tak­en a de­ci­sion on Ju­ly 1 to dis­con­tin­ue serv­ing Blue Wa­ters to the air­line’s cus­tomers. CAL had served Blue Wa­ters on flights for over 15 years.

Blue Wa­ters was found­ed 27 years ago by lo­cal busi­ness­man, Do­minic Hadeed, who was de­tained by the po­lice, along with his wife, on June 24. Fol­low­ing their ini­tial ar­rest, the cou­ple were served with Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions. These or­ders ex­tend­ed their stay in cus­tody with­out im­me­di­ate for­mal charges be­ing laid.

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the Hadeeds yes­ter­day ar­gued that they should be re­leased from de­ten­tion.